A more realistic route to autonomous driving - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/business/2018/08/04/a-more-realistic-route-to-autonomous-driving <comment><USER2> IMHO this is how self driving applications should start. Driving on the US freeways (say between LA and SF) isn't about your driving skills. It's mostly just about trying not to fall asleep. And machines are way better than humans at this!

Even outside the US, there are many areas (like UAE), which have amazing highways, sparse traffic and there isn't rail/air connectivity to some places. Self driving "shuttles" seem perfect for those applications.

<comment><USER3> In general, highways seem like a pretty logical starting point. There are some potential complications like car accidents and debris but they seem far more tractable than random pedestrians, cyclists, and all the complex driving behavior on city streets resulting from traffic lights, trucks stopped to make deliveries, etc. etc.

It _doesn 't_ enable end-to-end autonomous taxis, so you need a sober, licensed driver in the driver's seat even if they don't need to be able to take over on a second's notice.

Handling long distance highway driving would actually be a big win. It just doesn't stir imaginations the same way that completely eliminating a driver door-to-door does--especially among people who really want to get out of car ownership and driving entirely.

<comment><USER4> > especially among people who really want to get out of car ownership

I have brought this up before and I still do not understand how or why this idea is so tightly coupled to fully autonomous vehicles. I don't see how removing a human driver from a car service is going to change the dynamics enough to drive legions of people who own cars to get rid of them if they haven't done so already. The only friction a human driver adds right now is cost, but I don't see the cost savings of removing the driver being high enough to move the needle.

<comment><USER3> There seems to be an implicit assumption that autonomous driving would somehow make the cost of effectively renting cars by the mile (and have them come to your door) almost too cheap to meter. Whereas, especially for transportation options that involve multiple people in a vehicle, the cost of a driver isn't really all that much relative to the overall cost of operating a vehicle.

For any imagined scenario involving autonomous vehicles ushering in new modes of sharing, renting, etc., a useful question to ask is: "Why don't we have this today?" And, if the answer is anything other than "$10/hour for a human driver makes it too costly," then you should probably reconsider.

<comment><USER5> > Whereas, especially for transportation options that involve multiple people > in a vehicle, the cost of a driver isn't really all that much relative to > the overall cost of operating a vehicle.

Do you have a source on this? It's my understanding that most mass transit systems in the US spend a huge amount on operator compensation. BART, the one I'm most familiar with, spends $500m of its $691m operating budget on salary and benefits [0] despite the fact that BART trains already drive themselves!

[0]: [https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/FY18_Budget_Su...](https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/FY18_Budget_Summary.pdf#page7)

<comment><USER4> First off, you cannot ignore the $876mm capital portion of the budget; that money needs to come from somewhere.

Second, that $500mm covers every employee of BART. The administrators, maintenance personnel, police, and other non-operator functions do not go away. Without knowing what portion of that line item goes to operators one cannot make a judgement on how much cheaper the system would be without them.

<comment><USER5> Of course you're right; my comment was mostly tongue-in-cheek. Actual train operator salaries probably cost BART about $50m annually, not $500m. In both the cases of BART and private cars, the money to pay for tracks or roads comes from taxpayers. The trains themselves are now 40+ years old, and are finally being replaced at a cost of ~$300m this year. Grandparent post specifically talked about operating costs though.

All that said, trains are basically the most efficient mode of transport from a (number of drivers) / (number of passengers) perspective.

But speaking seriously for a moment:

\- Lyft charges riders about $2/mile in the Bay Area [0] before fees.

\- The IRS lets you depreciate your vehicle at a rate of $0.545/mile.

\- A reasonably efficient car burns ~40 mpg on freeway, at $3.50/gallon that's ~$0.09/mile.

So, of the $2/mile the riders pay, about 1/3 of that is costs associated with purchasing and operating the vehicle (according to IRS estimates) and fuel.

If we eliminate the rest via autonomous driving, and taxis became 65% cheaper, I suspect many people would make much more use of them.

[0]: [https://www.lyft.com/pricing/SFO](https://www.lyft.com/pricing/SFO)

<comment><USER6> Utilization rates are 50-58% for Uber or Lyft. When you take it into account that a taxi is not en route 100% of the time, and add the cost (interest, depreciation) of a much more expensive vehicle, I think your 65% savings go up in smoke.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, I'm not smart enough for this comment to stick with me. Could you walk me through how 50% utilization means the savings go up in smoke?

The most compelling thing I can pull from your comment is "autonomous cars will be 3x as expensive as regular cars (at least), so you won't save anything". That may be short-term true, but is almost certainly long-term false.

A 50% utilization compared with 100% utilization makes almost no difference in vehicle cost structure -- if anything, it actually increases the labor fraction of taxi cost.

If you're driving your car 50% of the time, then wear and milage is the dominant depreciation factor (rather than age). But a human sitting around doing nothing but waiting for that 50% of the time doubles the labor (time) cost of the service, suggesting an even greater savings from eliminating the human driver.

What am I missing?

<comment><USER6> I was assuming humans and self-driving cars both get revenue from riders, but don't get paid in between. And I'm interpreting utilization as the percentage of the time that riders are paying.

<comment><USER5> The human's time has a cost, and even if the rider doesn't explicitly pay it, it is factored in to the labor cost of the driver.

The machine's time cost is time-based depreciation, which is pretty low.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What I want is a self-driving golf cart that can take my mother to the doctor and back. _It doesn 't have to go fast._

I make this point every time I can: kinetic energy is the killer and it goes up with the square of velocity. Half-speed is quarter-deadly.

A golf cart-like machine, limited to a maximum speed not much faster than walking, light-weight, and festooned inside and out with airbags (and other anti-collision/-injury stuff), could be built today, I think it would work just fine, and I bet you could sell a lot of them. ("Baby Boomers" he says under his breath...)

Trying to go _straight to robot cars_ is hubris, it's biting off more than you can chew and then trying to talk past the food in your mouth.

Also, can we please call them "auto-autos"?

<comment><USER8> I have had the same thought, and I have sometimes wondered if this approach has not been widely pursued because it is potentially _too_ disruptive a technology - disruptive of the current patterns of vehicle ownership and use, that is.

<comment><USER9> I'd say it's not profitable enough to justify the R&D costs. You can't sell a $50,000 golf cart and expect the government to give additional incentives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like the simplifying-the-problem approach a lot! Roads in the US/California are so good that I can see it happen, and with clear labelling this could totally "ship" in a few years (i.e. remove the safety driver).

The next step would be 1h-out-of-town commuters + close-suburbia to specific dropoff points in downtown or wherever jobs tend to be. Again, stay on big roads that have good signalling, and keep the bright colors so other drivers will know to stay out of your way in the carpool lane.

It's basically what the big tech companies in the Valley are doing with their commuting busses, but smaller and for everyone. The min-busses with flexible routes are a common mode of transportation in certain Eastern European countries, see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka)

<comment><USER3> > The min-busses with flexible routes are a common mode of transportation in > certain Eastern European countries, see > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka)

They are. But that makes me wonder why we don't already see a lot of this type of thing in the US. My instinct would be the cost of a minimum wage-ish driver isn't the difference between this mode of transportation working and it not. Of course, it does exist in a sense with Lyft Line and Uber Pool although those don't get a lot of attention.

<comment><USER11> A similar service is quite common in the US:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_responsive_transport#Un...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_responsive_transport#United_States)

Lower costs there can perhaps lead to a virtuous cycle of increased service and use.

<comment><USER4> The vast majority of such systems in the US are limited to people with disabilities.

<comment><USER11> This is not the impression I have.

The one here is open to anyone and even sometimes runs a loop for a local taproom.

I guess you could sample 10 or 100 of them and see how many impose restrictions on rider eligibility.

<comment><USER4> "Vast majority" may have been too strong, but I stand behind "majority". The two programs on that Wiki page that actually have links are for disabled passengers only. Looking at the three systems that have covered areas I have lived, Broward County Transit and New Jersey Transit offer DRT only to those with disabilities, and Dallas Area Rapid Transit has very limited DRT service for non-disabled customers.

> The one here is open to anyone and even sometimes runs a loop for a local > taproom.

If it is running a loop it isn't DRT, it's a jitney.

<comment><USER11> I imagine the urban systems tend to be more restrictive than the rural ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is certainly more cautious, but it's not clear that this is any more realistic than Waymo's plan which involves limiting vehicles to a predefine area, mapping in great detail, etc.

<comment><USER13> It's clearly more realistic. They don't have to deal with roadworks, they have preset pickup points (no need to figure out finding a safe space to stop), they are relying on other drivers being cautious around a bright orange vehicle rather than trying to act like a real car, they have explicit screens for communication with pedestrians rather than trying to do it implicitly like we would (I.e. slow down to let a car out vs having a screen say "after you" or whatever).

Much easier (though still very hard).

<comment><USER12> Have they significantly reduced the challenge though? I don't think the core task of driving is significantly easier than these problems that they have elided.

I know it is a bit of a fallacy to say "we can fly to the moon, so we should be able to have a self-driving car", but it's also not clear that the tools we have (ML, simulators, planning algorithms, etc) are not up to the tasks that have Drive.ai have engineered around.

It's a reasonable strategy to elide things you can and focus on the "core" hard task, but if solving these other difficult problems is also meaningful product-wise (and it clearly is meaningful), there's no reason you can't have people working on both. And given Waymo seems to be gearing up for a large launch, I have a hard time believing that these additional tasks are as hard as Drive.ai want to make out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > In March a pedestrian was killed in Tempe, Arizona when a self-driving Uber > vehicle failed to spot her as she wheeled her bicycle across an empty road > at night

Wrong, the car did spot her, but the emergency braking systems were turned off.

<comment><USER15> Of course no mention in the article that the pedestrian was crossing unsafely.

<comment><USER16> isn't that the promise of a self driving car though? it can respond faster to dangerous situations?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> [https://outline.com/5k67MD](https://outline.com/5k67MD)

</comment><comment><USER18> Everyone is talking about autonomous cars but what about autonomous trains?

The problematics of autonomous trains are vastly simpler than autonomous cars.

Trains move in restricted paths (tracks), trains should stop only at specific places, trains meet other trains in such a few possible places, and so on.

<comment><USER19> Honestly those 'features' of trains have all been achieveable on pneumatic tires for decades. The advantages of trains are all limitations actually. On the other hand, limitations are good from a design perspective, improves focus and prevents feature bloat.

<comment><USER20> Also, I seem to remember that trains tend to be vastly more energy-efficient than cars, even if you factor in the occasional cost of a nearly-empty train.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _Building a vehicle that can handle a busy street, with cyclists, pedestrians, roadworks and emergency vehicles, is a tall order._

You can try to simplify the problem by limiting your routes to major highways and making the vehicle ultra-visible so other drivers give you a wide berth.

But at some point there will be construction, or a car wreck, or debris in the roadway. Eventually you'll need to exit the highway and drive on city streets.

Even if you manage to reduce the hard stuff to 1 mile out of 200, you still need to deal with it.

If you can't handle everything, you're not safe to be on the road.

<comment><USER22> >Even if you manage to reduce the hard stuff to 1 mile out of 200, you still need to deal with it.

I think the minimum required to deal with it is to have the car pull over when it identifies a situation it can't handle. Even an onramp to exit car that pulls over if it sees construction will be extremely valuable to anyone routinely doing highway driving.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This could have been built in the 70s, and I think actually was by Disney in the 80s for park transportation (somewhere I recall had me at a very early age on an autonomous vehicle that ran a planned route and would stop for anything out of the ordinary and announce things.)

However, it is exactly as it should be. I applaud them for daring to be dumb and focusing on the easy parts of the problem first. I think this will catch on and get better slowly.

</comment><comment><USER23> Going a bit controversial here but will self-driving cars be disrupted before they even take off. The big factor that I feel will impact how autonomous travel will evolve in the future is drone taxies/cars. Providing there is a change in the regulation to support self-driving flying cars/drones, the big advantage is that there would be no existing rules created for human driving (road signs, traffic lights...) to adhere to. A centralized system could calculate the best route to fly someone from A to B without the complexities that self-driving cars have to solve. And flying would clearly be much faster as well. Dubai, for example, is already testing, what comes after will be interesting.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41399406](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41399406)

<comment><USER24> Given that we are probably heading into an economy where energy will get more and more expensive (at least temporarily, due to a potential oil crunch coming), not sure how flying will be an economical way of transport.

<comment><USER25> Can you elaborate? Why might a oil crunch be coming?

<comment><USER26> Not parent but

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil)

<comment><USER27> They've been talking about peak oil since the late 1950s, and just about every single prediction about it has been wrong. I got caught up in the hype about it 5-10 years ago, and it took a while before I realized it was mostly a garden variety doomsday cult. [Yes there is such a thing as peak oil, and we may have even already hit it, but it's not going to destroy civilization as some have loudly declared.]

Gasoline consumption is not going up the way it used to, and there apparently is a whole lot more oil than a lot of people thought-- I'm guessing due to a combination of countries not providing correct numbers (it's a national security issue after all), new oilfield discoveries and new extraction techniques. Add in more efficient vehicles and alternative energy sources, and you quickly realize the worst that's going to happen is some gradually increased prices for products & services most closely tied to the current cost of fuel.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Online courses vs. colleges for software engineering - <AUTHOR> https://www.raahul.me/posts/online-courses-vs-colleges/ <comment><USER3> My friend dropped out of college. My girlfriend is _in_ college. I was talking about how she has a few years left and he starts shaking his head. "I just don't get it. So long and for what? To get a job?"

When he dropped out of engineering school he went to manage a restaurant. Made good money. Then started to build a house. Quit that too. He _almost_ had occupancy on it and said, "I'm done. I'm out."

That's _also_ what college is about. If you come to me looking for a job and didn't go to college, why? Did you drop out? Why? Do you not think learning is important? Do you not understand sticking it out until you have accomplished the goal?

Do you _give up_ before you are through?

Not only that, but of course, I meet folks all the time who think "you don't need a degree to be a programmer." Sure. You don't need a degree to put Ikea furniture together either. I don't need programmers. I write programs to write programs. I need folks who know how to _think_... for _themselves_ and _learn_ and go out and find knowledge they need to solve problems and then solve the problems.

Until they are _done_ solving the problem.

Not until they've given up.

<comment><USER4> Weird comment. You can get a college degree just for showing up.

Do you have a PhD, or did you give up? Do you have a high school degree, or did you give up? Do you still work at the first job you ever had, or did you give up?

<comment><USER5> I wish my Computers and Society professor got the memo that you can get a degree just for showing up. Could have skipped that 20 page paper on software patents.

<comment><USER6> I basically just went to courses and put barely any hours outside classes and got my paper. That's what's meant by just showing up.

<comment><USER7> Dunno where you went to school (liberal arts college?) but most programs are NOT like that, my degree required 30+ hours a week on assignments outside of class.

I found the material and tests straightforward but you absolutely needed to put in significant time to complete the assignments.

<comment><USER8> Quite possibly one of the new crop of for-profit schools.

<comment><USER9> If it's an unaccredited school, then I sure I can see that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The real take away is that structured exercises and projects are both a great way to develop and display your abilities and being able to demonstrate these is more important than holding a credential within the tech industry.

The barrier to entry for most people to tech jobs isn't whether or not they can get interviews, it's whether or not they can pass the technical assessment that's become a standard part of the process. In other industries, GPA, school rank, highest degree earned are hard pre-reqs to _inteviews_ , even for entry- level jobs. That isn't necessarily the case in tech.

I work in a field that falls under the "data science" umbrella and I take issue with a lot of online courses compared to traditional education because almost all of them overpromise and underdeliver and take advantage of naive students that don't know any better. I can't tell you how many applicants I've interviewed that list dozens of online certifications for this and that skill, but can't demonstrate any knowledge of it when asked or assessed.

Just my $0.02, but online tech courses and degrees are akin to the MBAs of a decade ago: exploitive, expensive, and often entirely unnecessary. I would still hold that a technical computer science degree from a 4-year university is worth it, however, for the benefit of being in a collaborative learning environment with peers (Note: That doesn't mean you have to go to Berkeley - <USER2> went to a top 50 state school and got the same education and job opportunities as all of my friends that went to top 10 schools, but I graduated with a positive net worth.)

(Disclaimer: I know there are always exceptions to everything. I have generally heard very good things about GT's courses - Udacity's I'm more skeptical of.)

<comment><USER4> Berkeley is a state school.

<comment><USER10> You're right! I didn't want to delve into it too deeply, but for me and my friends who weren't CA residents the tuition was extremely steep, even after certain scholarships/aid. I think people in the US don't consider their state schools enough when looking into getting a college education. Again, my public school's CS department was ranked top 50, which certainly isn't the worse in the US, but it isn't prestigious either. In the end, the prestige didn't really matter in terms of getting job opportunities compared to my friends that went to much higher ranked schools.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think it really depends on what you're trying to do and learn.

Lots of folks who have taken my Flask course[0] said they learned more about web app development in 10 hours of self paced videos than they did in 4 years of university. Lots of them felt like they finished the course really knowing how to build something, and many of them have gotten hired for work shortly after.

But the course doesn't touch algorithms or any theory around computer science. It's just 10 hours of exposure to building a real SAAS app in stages.

I personally believe experience trumps almost everything and courses can be very good for people who consider themselves self guided learners, because you always have the power to research the theory while treating it as something that's on a need to know basis. Taking a course on a specific subject lets you focus your time on the exact thing you're trying to accomplish and some course instructors also provide free support (I do), so you always have an out or 2nd set of eyes to help get an answer for things you can't figure out alone.

I never went to college but I do sometimes regret missing out on the social / networking experience, but I have no regrets about taking a self guided approach to web development for the last 20 years and I'm happy with how things turned out.

[1]: [https://buildasaasappwithflask.com/](https://buildasaasappwithflask.com/)

<comment><USER12> Echoing this sentiment of:

Motivated real world exposure > real world exposure > motivated self education > traditional education

As someone who mindlessly "self taught" through tutorials, then did half a bootcamp, then did a MSCS-- none of those things were anywhere near as transformational for me as a dev than my first year as a software engineer.

But of course, building AlgoDaily has probably taught me even more than the many years of work at this point, purely because there's been a strong impetus.

The "need to know" basis is huge. I think with a strong enough "need to know", any method works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Traditional universities have 3 advantages over online course providers like Udacity, Coursera and Khan Academy:

1\. They act as a coach: The professor and your peers expect you to attend lectures. The assignment is due by 5pm on Wednesday. If your performance isn't satisfactory you will be dropped from the course.

2\. They get better feedback about their teaching. If half the students can't do the assignment on a particular topic, the professor can schedule catch-up lessons. Watching a group of students struggle with a question can give valuable insights about how to teach that topic effectively.

3\. They act as a high-quality filter: Only high-quality applicants will be admitted to the university course, while anyone can pay $10 and start doing a Coursera course. The university also offers the opportunity to become part of a valuable alumni network.

(Some online bootcamps like Lambda also have these advantages because they insist on strict online attendance and are willing to drop students who don't put in the effort)

<comment><AUTHOR> The 2nd point really resonates with me. I was reading this book called "Ultralearning" and feedback was one of the biggest points mentioned there. People who get prompt feedback can immediately use it to learn from experience. People who don't have to keep guessing of what they're doing is right or wrong.

<comment><USER14> I agree as well. I've noticed that most of my learning simply consists of a series of "trial and error" repeated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Learning complex subjects is often uncomfortable. For me, college was the start of becoming comfortable with feeling stupid while learning. You learn to learn. You learn what parts of learning are normal.

I started college in 2001 as a computer science student and didn't "finish" for over 10 years because of job (sysadmin for university) and consulting opportunities (travel). I'm glad I finished because it's behind me and I don't need to think about it any more. I still have the common nightmare of not knowing where my final exam room is located.

Anyways, I am a big fan of online courses. In early 2000s I had learned and built many PHP sites and started with Rails. There were no classes/courses on PHP or rails!

Fast forward to early 2010s and I find myself watching Stanford's iOS development courses. I leveraged the knowledge to become a successful mobile app developer consultant.

A few years ago I purchased a handful of online courses on React/Redux. With that knowledge I've built a successful Electron JS app available on app stores.

These successes are not because I'm smart. It's because I have a high tolerance for pain and boredom. When I see a challenge I keep digging at it until it's solved.

Protip: Watch lectures at 1.5X speed (2X if review). Anything slower and my attention becomes highly distractable.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's quite simple really. There are some careers where you can learn and advance far more on your own.

Software engineering is one of them. The amount of tutorials and videos available on the internet far surpasses any curriculum at school.

But on the other hand, anything that requires hands on training that you can't get at the comfort of your house, like medical or scientific careers, those you probably need to go to a school for.

Further more, in terms of software engineering, I don't think the school system can ever keep up with the fast pace of the tech world. It's just a rigid system and too slow for anything fast changing, like the web/app development.

<comment><AUTHOR> [OP here] You're right. I actually did my bachelors in Electronics and Telecommunications engineering, which can only be done in college because of the expensive equipment required to learn anything of value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting take. I am a graduate and former TA in OMSCS, and used to work at Udacity building Nanodegrees (worked on ML & AI mostly). My experience is from a different perspective than the article, but I appreciated the differences without disagreement.

What I found in my time in both environments is that Nanodegrees appeal more to students who don't have access to traditional education (college is too expensive, or grad school requires an undergrad degree, etc.). That makes most MOOC students less experienced, less qualified, and higher risk (in the sense that they mostly don't have the profile of successful college students). Udacity, et. al., then appear to have a very important role to play in satisfying the need for education unencumbered by academic gatekeeping.

But the _other_ constant undertone in the MOOC community is the "get-rich- quick" crowd who expects a Nanodegree to make them a 6-figure AI engineer in three months at 5 hours per week. The dirty secret is that we already have a fast-paced learning environment that can give you a good crash course on the required core skills to make you a useful apprentice: it's called "college". It's arguable that the typical BS could be abbreviated a bit or focus a bit more on "job-ready" skills. But I think the time required for most people to get there is much closer to a 48-month BS than a 4-month Nanodegree.

The other dirty secret is that no one wants to hire you as a junior developer at SV rates if you don't have experience and need a visa or want to work remotely in your low CoL hometown. Unless you already have strong qualifications, you're fooling yourself if you think an ND or Udemy course is gonna help you break into Google as a fully remote worker.

<comment> barry-cotter > It's arguable that the typical BS could be abbreviated a bit or focus a bit > more on "job-ready" skills. But I think the time required for most people to > get there is much closer to a 48-month BS than a 4-month Nanodegree.

A US Bachelor's is not 48 months, at most 9 months a year is spent officially studying, the rest is holiday. That would be 36 months. If we pretend the average student treats it as seriously as a full time job, ignoring all research on how students spend their time, we can still cut that 36 months in half, because half of the average US Bachelor is general education with no professional impact. That'd be 18 months.

If we want to look at the real world for examples we can see the UK, where most Bachelor's are three years, with the extensive breaks and holidays you have in the US, but two year, full time, non stop degrees exist, or at Lambda School, which takes nine months to turn people into software engineers. They also demand more and more consistent work than well over 90% of university courses.

<comment><USER18> > A US Bachelor's is not 48 months, at most 9 months a year is spent > officially studying, the rest is holiday.

I went to college year round as it was the only way to balance my work schedule. I was a minimal full time student during the typical semesters and took classes all summer.

> because half of the average US Bachelor is general education with no > professional impact.

I disagree. The general education is probably what everyone should go to college to learn. Reading and writing (communication) is the basis for almost every single job a person may have. It's also a skill that lasts forever. When I was in undergrad I took random business courses for my electives. I still use and have built upon concepts I learned in economics, finance, and accounting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I work in the realm of higher education analytics. My comments here pertain to undergraduate students:

For the vast majority of students, online courses are not a good vehicle for learning. Not because online courses are, in themselves, ineffective, but because success in them requires a much higher degree of internal motivation. Without the structure afforded by the traditional classroom experience, a very large number do not engage with the coursework, especially beyond the first week or two. We see a rapid drop off in activity & assignment completion.

</comment><comment> d-d This article is about learning, but the context seems to be about landing a job. Software jobs are all about who you know. People who know people get waved past all the red tape. The truer purpose of education is relationships not knowledge. This is why there are high school dropout senior engineers ordering burgers from CS grads. If you're in it for money, you're less likely to build relationships. This is why I'm genuinely concerned for all these people stampeding towards CS. It's gonna be ugly in 5-10 years IMO.

<comment><USER20> For a new hire, it's more about standing out of average: github projects and all that. At that level connections are same CS grads that can't help much with landing a job. 10 years down the road it's more about connections with people from past gigs. Being a former roommate with someone in college is of no little help: unless that connection has been maintained, it's gone, and even if it's been maintained, that reference is of no help unless you worked together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> For me college was only useful to learn math, while everything I know about programming I learnt myself. Technically, everything I learnt about math I also learnt myself, but there was an important difference: math courses were structured in a particular way, as a sequence of topics that build on previous topics, and I had to pass exams on those topics, while learning programming was unguided. I don't use math at work, but math completely changed the way I think, and that happened during the first year in college. By "completely changed" I actually mean a substantial meaningful change in my thinking process. I believe, that the same result can be achieved by reading and _proving_ all the theorems in the calculus: the end result should be understanding how the notion of integrals is derived from the definition of numbers and the ability to actually derive it on paper (since just understanding often misses small details that change everything).

As for my programming skills, I can safely say they are top 1%, as I can often ignore inquiries from say FB HRs. Yet I learnt everything myself. Without math, and without that structured way of thinking that's required to prove theorems, I wouldn't be able to get to the CS fundamentals, and my CS knowledge would be very shallow. There were a few CS teachers in college, but even then it was obvious to me that they don't know much and they had to cater to the least able students in the group anyway. I don't see a way to bring highly skilled and competent CS teachers to college: those who really know programming and have interest and ability to deal with people, often make 500k+ a year with very relaxed work hours - there is simply no incentive for them to bother teaching CS to (mostly uninterested) kids in college. And those who do teach CS in college as their full time job don't know much about CS, simply because gathering that knowledge is a separate full time job.

Edit: so online courses or college? Neither. You only need a book that thoroughly explains fundamentals and will to go thru it. Not enough will? Then you need a teacher whose only job will be to assess your knowledge twice a year in the form of some exam. Both online courses and college are too slow: I could honestly finish a masters degree in 1 year if I could avoid wasting time on all the fluff.

<comment><USER21> > As for my programming skills, I can safely say they are top 1%, as I can > often ignore inquiries from say FB HRs.

Oh man, I wish this was an accurate measurement of programming skills :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I like to think of (software) engineering as a craft. Obviously the most effective way to learn something is by doing. The best way to get going and help you jump hoops and level up is having a mentor, or friends to talk to. Master/apprenticeship is old-fashioned but highly effective. All courses I've seen are boring, uninspiring and often ineffective, as it's often hard to relate them to a real problem you might have. Having real problems make you learn really fast.

</comment><comment><USER23> The conclusion is sound, the assignments reinforce learning through multiple and repeated usage of the various skills needed to complete them. The lectures and notes and readings are there to give a foundation and to be a reference to some extent. However, it's difficult to say that the only useful part of these courses are the assignments...

>The best way to learn is to do your own experiments. Once understood, that understanding lasts a lifetime. Facts can change, but the governing rules, if deciphered, won't.

I recommend to all software developers that they join the ACM (Association of Computing Machinery). This gives you access to computer science papers which are the foundations and the governing rules. There's also access to Safari Learning which gives you access to the latest books and video courses:

[https://www.acm.org/membership/membership- benefits](https://www.acm.org/membership/membership-benefits)

It costs a few hundred bucks a year and I've learned more in reading random CS papers and having access to great books and video courses than paying for many courses.

</comment><comment><USER24> If you want to create web apps go to online courses.

If you really want to understand how machines work, how strings work.

How distributed computing works

How databases work

How to program efficient string search

How regular expressions work

How to represent problems well for example in graph

How statistics works

How to analyze problems

How to read papers

How to be able to learn anything by your own

And the list goes on and on

It's all in real college University courses no online course would give that to you.

You have to focus on theory of math and cs for a couple of years and stretch and train your mind.

<comment><USER25> I'm a senior engineer at one of the big tech companies. Sharing that because that's all I have to back my opinion.

I don't agree with you. I don't think you need a four year degree for these concepts. I think many of the concepts you outline are very critical especially as you work on larger and more complex systems. However I'm not even convinced college does a good job at teaching these concepts. College introduce me to some of them but didn't actually help me build any intuition at all. I regurgitated the things my professor said and that's how I pass through my courses with straight A's. I didn't really understand distributed systems until I worked on them. I didn't really understand them well until I read about distributed systems not from a textbook but by other people who had worked on them and this was mostly online papers or YouTube videos or conference videos where are companies presenting on their lessons learned.

I think the course of the classes you need for a computer science curriculum such as data structures, algorithms, operating systems, networks, languages and compilers, databases and distributed systems - These can all be self taught. I'm not convinced a four year degree that's full of fluff with various elective courses adds any value.

<comment><USER26> You can literally read four books and get all those concepts. You won't be an expert in them, but taking a college course on them won't make you one either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Ohai HN! I lead product and engineering for services and the project reviews system at Udacity - seeing this post gives me a lot of purpose to go to work on Monday. We are hiring engineers who are passionate about changing education!

Frontend engineer on my team: [https://boards.greenhouse.io/udacity/jobs/4320541002](https://boards.greenhouse.io/udacity/jobs/4320541002)

All open engineering positions: [https://www.udacity.com/jobs#engineering- it?location=all](https://www.udacity.com/jobs#engineering-it?location=all)

<comment><USER28> Just curious- Would you hire someone with only an online certification in programming to an engineering job at udacity? (As a junior/intern)

<comment><USER29> Not the OP but I can tell you about my experience. I used to work at Udacity, both on engineering and content creation.

We for sure had engineers who were self-taught / learned using online resources (myself included). In fact, I hold zero certifications related to programming.

Over the years we recruited and employed a handful of engineers who pretty much learned everything they knew about programming through Udacity courses. Frankly, I always felt it was a very supportive environment for non- traditional engineers :)

<comment><USER28> Very cool. Thanks for responding :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> There was some link a few weeks back about the low completion rate for some online coursework being abysmally low.

This is HN, I would expect a hundred anecdotes from those who have succeeded against the traditional educational system in CS.

But are there studies or other evidence this is more then survivorship bias? Is any study following dropouts, non-BS grads, bootcampers and online students in the industry over time and counting from the total population who registered for CS 101?

</comment><comment><USER31> > The one thing that most of the colleges don't do well is teaching you how to > apply what you just learnt.

I disagree 100%. That is the primary value I got from college - learning how to not only learn, but break everything down, re-conceptualize it into new things, and build it back up into something productive. We absolutely applied what we learned to our own projects, and I've found those lessons continue to work well a couple decades into my career.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is very true. I am in college (non-american) and feel very weird because of the way a lot of stuff it taught here. Teaching is a different matter, but it is the grading that makes it worse. Questions asked in exams don't correspond to what is useful as far as I have seen programming on my own. Things I've learnt on my own help me understand stuff but papers are made just to ensure that those who mug up get better grades. It's sad.

</comment><comment><USER33> I've worked with people with cs degrees and self taught / bootcamp types and the biggest difference between them hasn't been based on their background but their commitment to continued learning on and off the job. Granted I can only judge their ability to do work similar to mine and not incredibly difficult by any stretch.

<comment><USER7> Are you saying that one group has commitment to learn and one doesn't? Or it's a mixed bag?

<comment><USER33> It's a mixed bag, the people from either camp who seen exceptional are the ones who are constantly learning

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Dropping out of college (or not attending college) for comp sci is great if you can make it work, or if you have the knowledge and discipline to get where you want to go.

However, for many (myself included), it provided a framework that I wouldn't have been able to get otherwise. After I got that framework, then the idea made more sense to me.

</comment><comment><USER19> Tangential, but somewhat related: At the community college level, there is an excellent degree type that still allows for a small liberal arts core, but focuses much more on marketable skills: The Associates of Applied Science, or AAS.

It has some, but reduced humanities requirements and focuses much more on career skills of the chosen area, all of which have specific, immediately accessible job opportunities. The really unfortunate part of this degree, however, is that it's very hard to build upon later at a 4 year school to finish a bachelors if you so choose: the credits either don't transfer or transfer as electives, not requirements towards a degree. Again, a major pivot is needed for traditional 4 year schools.

</comment><comment><USER35> In the US, college is very much about being taught - everyone following the professor's lectures through the syllabus step by step, with exercises, quizzes, and tests for course after course. It's my impression that in other countries the student is given broader direction, studies more on their own, attends lectures or not, meets with tutors, and is assessed at the end of the semester. This seems sort of half way between the US college and the US online approaches.

The fully online approach seems good only for those who are natural autodidacts or as a fallback for those who simply can't get through some of the non-CS required college courses.

</comment><comment><USER36> Another article spewing the same garbage. "You can't learn theory without a college degree." What? Do textbooks teaching theory not exist outside of college? Are there no blog posts teaching theory on the internet?

My self education took about as long as a college degree anyways, but I was able to work the whole time which I think gave me a bit of an edge over most college graduates. Self education can feature as much or as little theory as you decide you want to learn

</comment><comment><USER37> I didn't learn much about software engineering in my "Computer Science and Media" degree. But somehow I have the feeling it helped me learn stuff in general.

</comment><comment><USER38> Getting a university degree has been the single most rewarding experience in my life. It gave me opportunity in life. I was born to very poor parents who didn't have high school diploma or degree. We had almost nothing growing up. Getting formal education changed my life. I got internship before graduating with my degree. And I got entry level position immediately after graduating. I started saving to pay off my student loans immediately after that.

</comment><comment><USER39> I think people are confused here. It is not about going to college, it is about selecting field of study. A plumber don't need to go to college he just need a vocational training by doing hands on. But a mechanical engineer/scientist has to go to college to study something deeper. Udacity and coursera are filling up the gap for college courses, but you need expert professor guidance if you want to do some research.

<comment><USER40> >> Udacity and coursera are filling up the gap for college courses, but you need expert professor guidance if you want to do some research.

This is definitely not true across the board. I have multiple peer-reviewed published papers (in pretty solid journals) in a field I never formally studied, and am a college dropout to boot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> A 4 year degree really helps when trying to get an employment visa in a developed country though. e.g. Japan has a 4 year degree or 10 years equivalent work experience requirement.

There was a thread last year where lots of people commented about being rejected for a visa in Europe because they didn't have a degree, despite having multiple years of experience.

</comment><comment><USER42> I think in your case the combo of Udacity nanodegrees and OMS CS is absolutely perfect. You get overwhelmed by Top 10 academia rigor and flooded by projects, and then jump to cutting edge with Udacity and do cool stuff like self-driving cars. The only drawback would be lack of time to do anything else.

<comment><AUTHOR> [OP here] Yes, you're right. In my case, I had the fortune of starting to program at a very young age, about 11. I started doing these courses to get on the whole ML/AI bandwagon (although I had been exposed to neural networks in the early 2000s).

The broad understanding I came to was, it's important to make your own conclusions, and not take anyone else's conclusion for granted, whether it comes from universities, courses, or even blog posts like mine. In reality, however, it's difficult to devote that much time to personally research everything. So you should at least do it with the things that matter the most to you in life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> So the author starts with a first paragraph in which his presentation is largely biased in favor of online courses and then a second one in which he reveals that what he calls "college courses" is also an online version of it. The title isn't appropriate.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm learning writing code right in my college now and many online courses do provide a lot of basic information in coding like Randomized Algorithm etc. I think if I get all these classes I can learn more than my classes in college in terms of quality.

</comment><comment><USER45> Raahul, how do you like the omscs program? i am in it as well but worry that it is easier than the on campus MS. Even though I suspect it is easier, I still find the workload very heavy.

<comment><USER46> It's not easier than on campus. The curriculum is the same, and it's taught by the same professors and on campus head TAs (usually). If anything, it can be more difficult due to lack of interactivity in lectures to clarify things - although on the whole the recorded lecture quality is very good. OMSCS is no joke! If you want to take it, keep in mind it is a top 10 program and the workload and intensity of the classes can be very high. You will learn a lot, but it will also mean personal sacrifices (free time, time with family and friends) to keep up.

<comment><USER45> I am 4 classes into the program and enjoying it a lot. The surprising thing for me is that a single class seems to consume about 15 hours per week. I have heard that the harder classes, such as AI, IHPC, ML, GA, take 20-25 hours/week. I don't remember my undergrad courses being so demanding but I did not attend a top tier school.

All that said, perhaps for the sharper students these classes demand much less time than they do for me.

<comment><USER46> Ahh, hi Bryan - I missed that you were in OMSCS. I think I took HPCA with you in Spring. So you should know what I'm talking about after that first exam where a good chunk of the class dropped!

I'm currently in GA and it is tough, probably my toughest class so far - 10 to 20 hours a week is about what I'm doing. I think I would need at least 20 hours/week to pull off an A, but I don't have the time unfortunately. My undergrad, which is a top tier state school, was also on the whole a lot easier. OMSCS is a tough degree - completing it is a big achievement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> No matter how you cut it:

Understanding > knowledge

</comment><comment><USER48> Application development does not need Software Engineering.

<comment><USER8> Software engineering is mostly project management, with very little engineering content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> If I was a young person I would do this instead of these courses.

Start with leetcode easy and see what I am missing if i am unable to solve that problem. progress all the way to leetcode hard.

Anything else is pure waste of time and would _not_ land you a job.

<comment><USER50> If the job requires solving anything other than Leetcode problems, you're going to get PIP'ed real quick. Leetcode won't teach you solicit requirements from PM's, how to make network requests, set up your CI/CD environment, deploy your code, configure jest/babel/webpack (if you're doing front end web development). It's useful for demonstrating knowledge of Data Structures and Algorithms, but that's only a small sliver of being able to perform the job function of a Software Engineer.

<comment><USER49> > Leetcode won't teach you solicit requirements from PM'

You might or might not be able to do this but if you don't leetcode you won't get that job in the first place.</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook and Twitter Replacement Sought by Kim Dotcom - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44368811 <comment><AUTHOR> Quoting:

> _Cyber-security expert Prof Alan Woodward, from Surrey University, said the > issue revolved around trust._

> _" Do you trust Kim Dotcom, Julian Assange, et al more than those running > Twitter, Facebook?" he said._

> _" All these networks go through growing pains and I suspect that Facebook > and Twitter have learned a few lessons recently. Perhaps any new social > network would simply have to learn in the same way._

> _" Maybe this is a case of better the devil you know than the devil you > don't."_</comment>


The Surprising Physics of Pipe Organs - <AUTHOR> http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2009/09/surprising-physics-of-pipe-organs.html

<comment><USER2> If you haven't already read it Neal Stephenson's Cryptinomicon explains a great deal about the physics of organ pipes since one of the main Characters (Waterhouse) spends a lot of time fixing and playing organs.

Great book too.</comment>


Ask HN: Keybase.io Invite - Ash-k Hi, Does anyone maybe have an extra keybase.io invite code?
I'd really like to try it out. Sorry I was not able to comment on any old stories. So I had to submit a new one.<p>If you have one, Could you please send to <aryan dot ashwani at gmail dot com> <comment><AUTHOR> Sent!

<comment><USER2> Hi David, do you have another invite to share? If so <kam dot kudla at gmail></comment></comment>


Microsoft is acquiring Metaswitch Networks to expand its Azure 5G strategy - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/14/microsoft-is-acquiring-metaswitch-networks-to-expand-its-azure-5g-strategy/ <comment><USER2> Buying Metaswitch for a 5G initiative seems like a strange choice; they service a reasonable part of the rural US wireline market, but very little to none of the cellular market.</comment>


Genetics prof: Why I won't waste my money on a DNA test in 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://www.venturebeat.com/2013/12/31/genetics-prof-why-i-wont-waste-my-money-on-a-dna-test-in-2014/ <comment><USER2> I got a genetic test done with 23andme. It said I had a (greater probability of a) warfarin sensitivity. This was interesting because my grandma had a stroke after being given warfarin. The stroke put her in a wheelchair for the rest of her life - it ended her independence and she had to go into a home with 24hr care. It was horrible.

After this I got my entire family tested. As expected my mother carried the warfarin gene (the grandma was on her side of the family).

Knowing this information is hugely valuable to me. I think it's awful that the FDA deems fit to prevent me getting information about myself.

<comment><USER3> Warfarin sensitivity is _precisely_ why 23andMe needs to be regulated; 23andMe has NOT clinically (or analytically) validated any of the claims around the specific SNPs they've identified. All 23andMe does is link to research papers that may suggest that there are gene variants that are linked to warfarin sensitivity; however, these have not been validated to be clinically significant.

In fact, just last month, the New England Journal of Medicine published a landmark study around the pharmacogenomics of warfarin dosing, which found that this very genetic data does NOT affect/improve warfarin dosing ([http://www.nih.gov/news/health/nov2013/nhlbi-19.htm](http://www.nih.gov/news/health/nov2013/nhlbi-19.htm), original paper: [http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1310669](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1310669)). In light of this, this warfarin sensitivity information that you've obtained from 23andMe is almost certainly a false positive, and if you were on a prescribed warfarin treatment, 23andMe would've likely resulted in a change in your behavior that would be strictly detrimental to your health.

<comment><USER4> _In light of this, this warfarin sensitivity information that you 've obtained from 23andMe is almost certainly a false positive, and if you were on a prescribed warfarin treatment, 23andMe would've likely resulted in a change in your behavior that would be strictly detrimental to your health._

I don't think there is any valid basis for that claim. A rational person (and I only mean "somewhat rational", I'm not talking about an Econ101 "perfectly rational actor" here) would get their 23andMe results, go "hmmm, this is interesting" and line up a visit to their primary care physician to talk about the results, and what it might mean for their treatment... at which point additional tests might be indicated, or the doctor could more fully explain the various tradeoffs, implications, etc.

There's no _particular_ reason to assume that people are going to randomly adjust their medications based on 23andMe results alone.

And, even if they do, so be it - the price of personal freedom is individual responsibility for the outcome of your actions.

<comment><USER5> If only most people where sufficiently rational to respond that way to things, we could do away with a whole lot of regulation of all kinds of things.

<comment><USER6> We can indeed.

This appears to be more a political issue than a scientific one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hank Greely is not a "genetics prof", he is a bioethicist in Stanford's Law School. He doesn't develop new genetic technologies. This is like calling a film critic a director.

[http://www.law.stanford.edu/profile/hank- greely](http://www.law.stanford.edu/profile/hank-greely)

<comment><USER8> > "Hank Greely is not a "genetics prof", he is a bioethicist in Stanford's Law > School. He doesn't develop new genetic technologies. This is like calling a > film critic a director.

[http://www.law.stanford.edu/profile/hank- greely](http://www.law.stanford.edu/profile/hank-greely) "

I'm not sure your assessment is entirely correct.

Here's an excerpt from the same page you linked to:

 _" Greely is also a professor (by courtesy) of genetics at Stanford School of Medicine."_

I don't know how professorships by courtesy work at Stanford.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_States#Professor_by_courtesy_.2F_affiliated_professor)

Assuming that the content currently in that section of Wikipedia is correct and is congruent with how things work at Stanford, he _is_ a "genetics prof".

Or we can just take his Stanford bio at face value.

Also, we should consider what the man has to say. Whether or not he "develop[s] new genetic technologies" is irrelevant if his opinions are valid and his facts are correct. If you take issue with the opinions he has or the facts he states, then address those head on.

The man's thoughts are being called upon because he is a domain expert in bioethics (and, as we've just found out, genetics). I think it would be a good bet that this man has a wealth of relevant domain knowledge with respect to state of the art genetics research, gene sequencing technologies, and genomics startups.

Qualification sniping tends to be a poor way of discounting what someone has to say.

<comment><USER9> It seems extremely, extremely clear from the page you linked ... look at the sidebar: Education: BA 1974 from Stanford, Law Degree.

He is a lawyer, and did not even get a science-related degree when he took his bachelor's (BA = Bachelor of Arts).

<comment><USER8> I'm honestly baffled by the reaction to this. You're absolutely right that it is extremely clear.

It says he is a director at the Center of Law and the Biomedical Sciences at the School of Law and that he is a Professor (by courtesy) of Genetics at the School of Medicine.

It literally says that in his bio.

Yet at least three people in this thread have felt the need to inform HN that "he's not a genetics prof" and then _link to the bio of him that lists him as a Professor (by courtesy) of Genetics at the Stanford School of Medicine._

What does the education portion of your comment have to do with my comment? The comment I was responding to said he was _not_ a Genetics professor, I responded by saying that he _is_ a Genetics professor (according to his Stanford bio).

I wasn't saying that he was not a legal expert as well.

<comment><USER9> I am sorry, if you feel I am being snarky. But "by courtesy" plainly is used as some form of honorary title - if he had it "by merit" they would not use the term.

Given that the title of the article at least, implies that a person with deep knowledge of the science (not the ethics) of genetics is expressing an opinion, it seems fair to point out that there is no indication of deep math skills, or of chemistry, physics, biochemistry, etc. knowledge.

<comment><USER8> > " But "by courtesy" plainly is used as some form of honorary title - if he > had it "by merit" they would not use the term. "

You know why the Stanford School of Medicine gave him that title? It wasn't for merit? And Stanford is using the "by courtesy" term differently than how it is normally defined?

> "Given that the title of the article at least, implies that a person with > deep knowledge of the science (not the ethics) of genetics is expressing an > opinion, it seems fair to point out that there is no indication of deep math > skills, or of chemistry, physics, biochemistry, etc. knowledge."

Just to be clear, are you saying that you see no indication that Greely has a deep knowledge of the science behind his field of study-- based on the title and content of a ~700 word _Venturebeat_ post?

I'm not going to comment on this thread anymore. If you want, you can look through his publications. But I doubt that would change your mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Were the raw data consistent? I can understand that the 3 companies were interpreting the raw data differently, but were the underlying snp frequencies consistent?

If they are not consistent, then the whole thing is pointless and they need to work on better kits. If they are consistent, it still doesn't say much.

Genome wide association studies (GWAS) are very hard to control. And most papers tend to ignore external factors when they conduct the analysis. Do these group of people have this phenotype because of particular snps or do they have it because they have similar diets, similar geographic area, similar age range?

</comment><comment><USER11> not a genetics prof - a law prof.

[http://www.law.stanford.edu/profile/hank- greely](http://www.law.stanford.edu/profile/hank-greely)

<comment><USER8> > "not a genetics prof - a law prof.

[http://www.law.stanford.edu/profile/hank- greely](http://www.law.stanford.edu/profile/hank-greely) "

From the page you linked:

 _" Greely is also a professor (by courtesy) of genetics at Stanford School of Medicine."_

It seems that he is a Professor (by courtesy) of Genetics, he is on the Steering Committee for Biomedical Ethics, and is a director at the Center of Law and the Biosciences.

Here is my other comment on the matter:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6994518](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6994518)

<comment><USER12> Normally you would assume that if someone is a genetics prof., they would have some formal training in genetics. Which in this case is not true. He was trained in a law school, but is now cooperating with genetics and medicine people.

<comment><USER8> The only thing I disagree with in your comment is the "Which in this case is not true." portion.

We cannot make that inference based on the information in the article and the bio that has been linked exhaustively in this comment section. Please see the comment from 'tzs: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6994924](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6994924)

If someone has more information, I suppose they could step forward; but I really think we should hew in the direction of addressing arguments instead of dissecting qualifications. That's not to say you should never question qualifications, it's just that it's so much better to address arguments. And it was really weird that people short circuited to dissection mode, as though we should simply ignore the man and move on. (I'm not trying to imply this about your comment.)

The rest of this comment isn't really directed at you, I just want to append the rest of my thoughts here.

I was really surprised to see some of HN get so hung up on the formal training of an interviewee in an otherwise relatively benign article. It seems like the kind of thing that HN would usually embrace.

After all, are we really going to ignore the 115+ publications that Mr. Greely has either been an author or co-author of? Many of which are in leading journals of fields relative to this discussion. Are we going to discount the decades he has spent studying and interpreting this domain? Does the fact that, for whatever reason, Stanford has acknowledged his expertise in multiple areas relevant to this discussion not count for anything? How exactly do we weight this demonstrated experience vs. formal qualification?

What is frustrating to me about a couple comments here is that they got hung up on the wording of the venturebeat post and then short circuited to qualification sniping mode.

I think it would be more productive to address the interviewee's related opinions and stated facts.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


NodeKnockout: Microscopic Survival Horror MMO. - <AUTHOR> http://node-juice.no.de

<comment><USER2> After actually playing it--the penchant of the controlled blob to end up running into invisible walls is absolutely eye-gougingly irritating.

That said, I look forward to the video-- I'm curious as to where the "horror" comes in.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there a video of how this is supposed to be played? I swam around a bit, saw some other blobs, then it said "Demo over, restarting in 10 seconds". Upon reloading, it appears the server has died.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll have a video up in the next couple days. I'll post it on HN and as a reply to this thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Tells me I'm dead before the loading screen even disappears. Firefox/Win.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, we're having some memory usage issues on the small joyent server. I can't move it until the judging is finished.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you like it, please use the vote buttons on the page to vote it up, or go here: <http://nodeknockout.com/teams/node-juice>

</comment><comment><USER5> Very nice.

Are you having any issues with the 128MB ram that the joyent no.de machines come standard with?

<comment><AUTHOR> Running like a charm right now, though we could support a lot more players if we had more ram :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Running like a charm might have been an overstatement, HN seems to be giving us some trouble ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Frozen on "Building World..." Consumed all cpu and a lot of gpu tho...

(Chrome/win)

</comment><comment><USER2> I seem to be hanging on "Building World". Mac/Chrome.</comment>